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Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2016-7978 json

Use-after-free vulnerability in Ghostscript 9.20 might allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via vectors related to a reference…

published 2017-05-23 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-8826

cvss
9.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
5.5%
EPSS 5.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 92%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Use-after-free vulnerability in Ghostscript 9.20 might allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via vectors related to a reference leak in .setdevice.

Patch / fix

  • ghostscript Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 9.19~dfsg-3.1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-7978

  • ghostscript Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 9.10~dfsg-0ubuntu10.5
  • ghostscript Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 9.18~dfsg~0-0ubuntu2.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-7978

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • ghostscript RHEL 7 9.07-20.el7_3.1
  • ghostscript-gtk RHEL 7 9.07-20.el7_3.1
  • ghostscript-cups RHEL 7 9.07-20.el7_3.1

red hat advisories RHSA-2017:0013

  • ghostscript SLES for SAP 12 SP1, SLES for SAP 12, SLES 12-LTSS +3 more 9.15-11.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2016:2492-1

  • ghostscript openSUSE Tumbleweed 9.20-2.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:10003-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2016-7978 updated cvss 5.8

ghostscript: reference leak in .setdevice allows use-after-free and remote code execution

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-20.el7_3.1, ghostscript-cups 9.07-20.el7_3.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-20.el7_3.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-20.el7_3.1, ghostscript-cups 9.07-20.el7_3.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux ComputeNode Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-20.el7_3.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-20.el7_3.1, ghostscript-cups 9.07-20.el7_3.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-20.el7_3.1
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 7) ghostscript 9.07-20.el7_3.1, ghostscript-cups 9.07-20.el7_3.1 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 7) ghostscript-gtk 9.07-20.el7_3.1
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2017:0013
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 ghostscript Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 ghostscript, ghostscript-gtk Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise 2 ghostscript
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

5.53% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 92% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 9.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.